Marawi Siege: Who laid siege to the city?

For a year, the mass media keep on saying “The Marawi Siege”. Sometimes, it is not clear which party they are referring to as the ones laying the siege and which party is besieged.

Once, I posted at my Facebook account a question – Who is doing the siege? Some people liked it. I think one commented “Yes, indeed.” But nobody ventured an answer.

In the first anniversary of the “siege of Marawi”, ANC posted a video with the following statement:

Here, it is very clear that, for ANC, the Maute Group is the one laying the siege.

From the web, one can get this definition of siege:

For those who have forgot / forgotten the story of the siege, let me refresh your memory. The military / government asked the residents to evacuate Marawi because of the presence of 50 or so armed men/boys, some of them carrying or waving ISIS flags. Then, they (military and government officials) allowed the Mautes to roam around Marawi while the residents fled for fear of Martial Law and being bombed by Philippine military jets just as what happened in Butig a few months earlier.

After a few days, when the Mautes had chosen the best spots to put in snipers and have the best vantage points, the MILITARY forces “surrounded the city and cut off supplies, with the aim of forcing the armed group to surrender.”
It is very clear then who was laying the siege. The military forces laid siege to the Maute group, bringing along tanks, armored vehicles and jet bombers. The Mautes were besieged. The Philippine military forces – thousands of troops with armor materiel and high-powered armaments, including jet bombers for air support — surrounded Marawi in order to defeat those inside it (the Maute Group). Thus, the Military, together with embedded media people, laid the siege.

It really behooves media people to consult their dictionaries once in a while.